Bigger On the Inside
by The Tardis Blue Impala
Summary: The Doctor was Hermione's hero, her role model. He was there for her when nobody else was. She knew he wasn't real, but he was real enough to be her friend and inspiration.


**Hello there, readers. So, a little while ago, I was thinking about Hermione's childhood. She grew up in the 80's and 90's in England and was raised by muggles, so therefore, I thought, it was likely that her parents were fans of Doctor Who. So, since I figure it was likely that her parents were Whovians, Hermione would be one herself. **

**And this brings us to the plot bunny that birthed this one-shot.**

**I don't own Harry Potter or Doctor Who. If I did, I wouldn't have to worry about college expenses.**

* * *

"Hermione!" came a voice from downstairs, "It's almost seven!"

Six-year-old Hermione Granger looked up sharply from her book with a gasp, a huge grin on her face. She closed her book with an audible snap and dropped it on her mattress. She jumped off her bed and dashed out her bedroom door, bounding down the carpeted staircase at her mother's summons, nearly tripping over the last step in her haste. She dashed into the kitchen where her father was preparing popcorn and her mother was talking with him.

"Is it time? Is it time?" Hermione asked eagerly, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Yes dear, why don't you go turn on the telly, your dad and I will be right there," Jean Granger said to her daughter, watching as the girl's bushy light brown hair trailed after her as she rounded the corner into the den.

Hermione Granger wasn't usually one to get excited over a television programme. She usually loved to sit in her room or perhaps outside on the back porch, reading whatever book had taken her fancy. She loved to read and learn new things. She was already reading chapter books and that was something she never failed to remind her more unsavory classmates.

Generally she would pick a book over television, but there was one exception and that exception was Doctor Who.

Hermione absolutely loved the science fiction programme, she loved the stories and the adventures. She loved how the Doctor used his intellect to save the day, it was encouraging to her - maybe one day she would have adventures and save the day with _her_ intellect.

She pressed the right buttons and turned the dial just right on the telly until she got to the correct channel and then sat down in the exact middle of the couch, waiting on her parents. It didn't take long for them to join her, a bowl of popcorn in her father's hands, ready to watch the Doctor's next adventure.

* * *

Hermione sniffed and angrily wiped at her eyes. _It's not fair. It's not my fault that they're all idiots. Why do they have to be so mean about it? It's not like I'm trying to be smarter than them, they're all just very... not smart. That doesn't give them the right to be so mean!_ she thought to herself as she walked home from her third day of second grade. It had been a dreadfully awful day. It started off well, Hermione thought. She answered all of Ms. Brayfield's questions correctly and she finished her class reading early enough to get a new book! But then at lunch and recess the day took a turn for the worse. Her classmates teased her and called her names.

_Know-it-all! Know-it-all! Know-it-all!_ their taunts echoed in her head. Her tears came back with renewed vigor and Hermione angrily wiped them away. She couldn't cry. She was brave. She was brave like the Doctor and the Doctor didn't cry.

_Why don't they understand that being a know-it-all isn't a bad thing?_ she asked herself. _The Doctor is a know-it-all. _

* * *

"It is _not_ dumb!" an eight-year-old Hermione shouted back at Emily Stevenson. It was the middle of second grade for her and it had finally gotten cool enough outside for her to wear her favorite scarf - her ridiculously long scarf just like the one the Doctor used to wear. When Hermione went outside to recess to play in the snow with her scarf wrapped about four times around her neck and still trailing in the snow, Stevenson had decided to bully her again. But unlike all the other times, it wasn't about how smart Hermione was, but about Doctor Who.

"Doctor Who is stupid and confusing and dumb!" Emily taunted her.

"It is _NOT_!" Hermione screamed in defense of her favorite programme. She was so angry she couldn't even argue properly! She hated Stevenson so much she could _feel_ her anger swelling up inside her, fighting for a way out, and the next thing she knew, two of the bins at the corner of the playground had been violently knocked over somehow, spilling trash everywhere, and Emily Stevenson's perfect brown hair was now Tardis blue.

* * *

Hermione didn't think too hard about what she would miss when she went away to Hogwarts. She knew she would miss her parents and her old cat, William, but she was too excited to learn at her new school to worry about missing home.

Now that she was at Hogwarts, she could clearly see what she was missing most. She felt a little bad that it wasn't her parents that she missed, but at the same time, she didn't. Her parents _had_ always been there for her, but they didn't understand her sometimes. No, what Hermione missed the most from home was her Doctor. She had researched how muggle technology and magic mixed together and had been disappointed to say the least that magic in such a high concentration like at Hogwarts would ruin any electronic devices from the muggle world. She missed Doctor Who. She missed sitting down on the couch with her mum and dad, bouncing in time with the theme song, giggling as pieces of popcorn bounced out of the bowl in her lap and onto the floor. She missed the reassurances she found in the Doctor's character, that there was indeed a place in stories for the know-it-alls. She needed that reassurance now more than ever.

She had hoped that maybe once she got to Hogwarts it would get better. She hoped that there would be people who accepted her for her brains. _I couldn't have been more wrong,_ she angrily thought to herself. Her classmates were just as bad here as they had been in primary school. The only difference here was that they didn't tease her here for her obsession with Doctor Who. Hardly anyone at Hogwarts recognized her scarf or her multicolored umbrella and honestly, Hermione preferred it that way. The Doctor was _her_ friend.

_I don't need any friends here, _she lied to herself, suppressing the tears that she felt welling up in the corners of her eyes, _I have the Doctor._

* * *

She couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe it. No matter how many times she turned it over in her hands - without turning _it_ mind you - she couldn't believe it. She had a way to travel in time. She, Hermione Granger, could travel in time with this little trinket she held in her hands. She'd never even dared to hope that time travel was possible. She liked to keep that shred of hope buried deep in her mind under lock and key so that it could never bring her disappointment. But now, that lock was broken and she didn't need to hope anymore because _she could travel in bloody time!_

Of course, she knew what would happen if she messed up or if she used it for the wrong reasons - she didn't need Professor McGonagall to tell her that. She knew plenty about paradoxes and time loops and other nasty business that can result from time travel. The Doctor taught her that. But she couldn't help the overwhelming _excitement_ she felt. She could _travel in time!_

* * *

When Hermione was little, she had fantasized about using her intellect to save the day - going back in time and fixing things so that the problem could be averted. As she crouched behind the pumpkins in Hagrid's garden with Harry, watching their past selves talking to the groundskeeper, she couldn't suppress her grin. She no longer had to fantasize about it. She had traveled in time and now she was going to save the day.

She was the Doctor and Harry was her companion. She explained things to him as they went, just like the Doctor did, she used her intellect and her ingenuity to figure things out, but she had a feeling that - just like the Doctor - she wouldn't be able to do it all alone. She would need Harry's help before they could save the day. She could feel it in her gut.

* * *

As they walked through the campground full of wizarding tents, Hermione couldn't help but wonder how it all worked. It was so odd, the tents were small - the size of muggle one-man or two-man tents - but whole families were piling in and out of them like they were clown cars. With some help from Harry, she managed to put up the Weasley's tents once they reached their site and once they were erected, she stood back to admire her work. She did pretty well if she did say so herself, especially since she had only ever gone camping once with her parents.

She stood back to admire her work and watched as the Weasleys cheered and laughed. With some claps on her shoulders and a few "Good job, Hermione"s, the Weasley men started into the tent, the twins practically diving in headfirst. For all intents and purposes, they should've been the only ones who fit. _It's only a two-man tent,_ Hermione reasoned to herself. She was about to ask Mr. Weasley where the other tents were when he grinned at her and entered the tent behind the twins. The rest of the Weasleys and even Harry followed suit until Hermione was the last one outside. Through her confusion, there was only one explanation she could think of for this, but she didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to get her hopes up for them only to be shattered.

With a little subconscious push from an umbrella with a question mark for a handle, Hermione slowly pulled aside the flap of the tent and entered a space that looked more like a little home than the tiny two-man tent it appeared to be outside. Fred and George had their feet propped up on a little table, Ron was busy claiming a top bunk, and Mr. Weasley was hovering over Harry's shoulder in the kitchen. Hermione couldn't hide the huge grin on her face as she took it all in.

"What do you think, Hermione?" one of the Weasleys asked her.

"I love it," she said without hesitation, turning to see who had asked her and finding Ron's face sticking out over his top bunk.

"It's bigger on the inside."

* * *

**Thank you so much for reading! If you liked it, leave me a review! I want to hear from you and know what you think.**

**Natalie out.**


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